• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Help Conserving Battery Life

M

MadamButterfly27

Lurker
Hello,

Does anyone know anything that can be deleted or "stopped" to conserve battery life? Right now I am simply keeping my Transform charging up all day on the USB while I am at work and at home in the evenings but these batteries drain EXTREMELY fast. I started to download the task manager however I read reviews that the task manager actually did more damage than help in this case.

Thanks
 
Turn down the backlight
Turn down the screen timeout
Check you battery manager or use Spare Parts to see if there is a particular app that is eating the battery.

What are you doing with it when it drains so quickly?
 
Make sure GPS is off....

If you get rooted you can go to SDX and get the stock app remover and there is a page that lists the apps from the Moment that are ok to remove.

When you use an app make sure you either hit menu and click exit or hit the back arrow till you get back on the home screen that way you close the app and not leave it running in the background....
 
With my Epic, I use DCswitch to turn off 3G when I don't need internet or when I really need to save battery. It helps quite a bit.
 
fwiw i have the same issue. turning down the backlight, turning off the frontkey vibrations, using Advanced Task Killer Free seems to decently kill everything running.

anyone know how to get "voice search" to keep from running? i have to kill it literally every time i kill apps.

the usage indicator blames "display" for 40+% of my battery usage, the lion's share so far.
 
Use Advanced Task Killer, and set it to auto kill, this will kill apps on your desired frequency. Works great.
 
i think you can save the most power by rooting your phone and turning off 3g data when you can. if your battery is still draining quickly then you might be in a low signal area which will drain your battery fast. best thing to do in this case is to put your phone in airplane mode. its too bad samsung phones usually don't get any aftermarket extended batteries.
 
Definitely don't use a task killer, as it will drain your battery worse due to the OS having to fire up the applications again when you use them next. Turning off GPS makes little to no difference and that has been proven in other threads in various forums.

Turning off 3G can make a HUGE difference if your phone is searching for signal a lot while at work. If you are not needing to download stuff or use your phone for much more than just a phone in certain situations, getting an app that allows you to toggle 3G off/on is a good idea. There are free apps out there that will allow this (I use "Quick Settings"...works really well and has lots of options, although you have to dig a little for the 3G setting). By the way, you don't need to be rooted to use these apps.

One thing that was discovered about the Samsung Epic, which is what I have, is that you need to reset the radio antennas whenever you reboot or power on the phone after it's been powered down. I don't fully understand why, but it seems to help the battery quite a bit. You do this by allowing the phone to boot up fully and then toggle on "Airplane Mode" and then toggle it back off. This resets the radios and might help you out.

Turning down brightness is a very good way to help your battery, as well as checking your settings for widgets and apps that check for updates online. A Facebook app, for example, might give you the option of updating your feed every 5 minutes. If you are happy with waiting longer for your feed to update, try changing the interval to 15 or 30 minutes. You'd be surprised how much of a difference this makes. Especially if you have several apps that update themselves! :)
 
When I used a task killer I can say that it didn't save any battery. I didn't notice much more drain either, but it makes sense that it would hit the battery a bit harder since it would have to reload a lot of applications.
 
Android applications are "registered" to start under specific conditions - device boot, after device boot, new app installed, app uninstalled, BT state changed, data state, SD mounted, unmounted, and much more. This is why apps that get killed will automatically restart based on some condition. Google Maps, for example, for some unknown reason, is registered to start when a new application is installed.

The two best ways to deal with unwanted apps require root. With root, you can keep apps from starting or restarting, or remove them entirely. By doing so, you can see real gains in battery life, especially when you remove those apps that use data or CPU even if you configure them not to.

Without root, disabling auto-sync (both in system settings and applications) can be a big help. Also use monitoring tools (System Monitor works well) to look for apps that use excessive CPU. There are apps that mis-behave right under your nose.

The Linux kernel does a reasonable job of managing memory. If an application is dormant, its impact on battery is very small.
 
Interesting, I will try this starting Sunday, and see what it is like for a week compared to using an App Killer (Advanced App Killer).
 
Another observation....

A couple days after I got my Epic, I installed Juice Defender (free version) and found that my battery life was worse instead of better! I'm not sure what settings in that app caused it, although I think it was the one that shuts off the radio while the phone is sleeping (because it then has to fire the antenna back up and look for signal every time you wake the phone). I turned off Juice Defender yesterday and my battery life has improved. It was disappointing to find that out, considering that the program is supposed to IMPROVE battery life. LOL
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom